The flagship group that we all know and love today! Without Momosu and Tsunku’s level of interest in the “losers” from ASAYAN, we wouldn’t have H!P as we know it today! In the early days, it was more humbling since it was originally Yuko, Asuka, Nacchi, Kaori, and Ayappe…but it soon grew and it turns out it was going to be a regular basis that girls would leave and more girls be added. The smallest Momosu has been is at just 5 members…the original 5 and two years ago with (Takitty, Sayu, Aika, Gaki, and Reina). The biggest was at 16 members (jeeze…). They’ve come a long way and they’re going strong still to this day ^_^

The Members

I’ve listed them off already but there’s been a colorful bunch! Most of the time it seems H!P/UFA/Tsunku wants girls they can work towards being an idol (with exceptions of course) and after the 5th Auditions, they didn’t really allow girls who had work prior but it seemed to be slipping with adding Riho and Ayumi and all that. All the girls definitely had such different personalities and that’s why I like them a lot (I mean yeah shy first but they grew!). There were ladies I didn’t know how they were when they were around: Asuka, Aya, and Sayaka and girls where they’re still finding their niche (Mizuki, Erina, and the Jyuukies)…but they grew into lovable bundles of joy ^_^. Plus recently with Tsunku trying to get all the members on one stage (there were a couple missing: Asuka, Sayaka, Aibon, Takitty, Konkon, Jun, Lin, Kame, and Mikitty (but she was preggo). It’s a nice dream to have all the members perform LOVE Machine if anything once.

Style of Music: It varies on a wide note with Momosu. They’ve done a lot of different genres like Rock (Kanashimi Twilight and Shabondama), Big Band (Mr. Moonlight), R&B (Memory Seishun no Hikari), Cutesy (Pyokopyoko Ultra) and even more. Though there were times where they stuck to a certain sound for a while like disco and the more emotional songs but otherwise they change so often that it’s hard to classify them fully.

Discography

Singles

Ai no Tane (more like a demo tape but yeah…it doesn’t matter since it was on their next release).

Morning Musume EARLY SINGLE BOX (boxset of their first 8 singles and has a bonus track on each)

Rainbow 7

7.5 Fuyu Fuyu Morning Musume Mini! (mini-album)

SEXY 8 BEAT

Morning Musume ALL SINGLES COMPLETE ~10th ANNIVERSARY~ (best album)

COVER YOU (cover album)

Platinum 9 DISC

Morning Musume Zen Single Coupling Collection (b-side best album)

10 MY ME

Fantasy! Juuichi

12, Smart

13 Colorful Character

The Best! ~Updated Morning Musume~ (self-cover album)

Morning Musume ’14 Coupling Collection 2 (b-side best album)

One Two Three to Zero (best album)

14 Shou ~The message~

15 Thank you, too

Hatachi no Morning Musume (mini-album)

Best! Morning Musume 20th Anniversary (best album)

and others that are combined with other stuff….too many XD

^^^It was fitting to put Morning Coffee up because it was the group’s actual release (once again “Ai no Tane” was just a demo tape). This was where the group started…but I’ll talk about that when I get to doing the other series ^_^ ^^^

^^^This is about midway of the history I think, but it’s also the area where the most amount of members appeared…it’s not the 16 (Kei left) but Shabondama was huge…and god forbid it’s such a badass song!) ^^^

^^^This is the most recent PV, Help me!! where we get to see the newest 11th generation member Sakura Oda debut!^^^

Top 10 Favorite Songs:

As hard as it gets this might be the toughest to choose the top 5 since there’s so many songs I love from the group…but….I’m making the list at ten!

Miki Fujimoto (her vocals would slay and it has in every group/shuffle/sub-unit to date…she’s probably the best vocalist of Momosu altogether IMHO)

Asami Konno (She’s my bias so I would want her around and she’s good to have around if not for melodic purposes.

Haruka Kudo (Her deeper husky tone could work with Miki quite nicely and she’s cute enough to add bass along with the cuter ladies as well

Natsumi Abe (Hate to say it, but she has beautiful vocals…light and fluffy and just nice to hear (knowingly she would hog the lines though XD)

Ai Takahashi (Same as Nacchi, great vocals and she knows how to sing amazingly so she’d be a shoe-in LOL

Mizuki Fukumura (Melodic purposes clearly…she’s got a voice that would blend really nicely with just about anyone actually

Aya Ishiguro (while I might never paid attention early on, I noticed that Aya has a great voice as well and she can do deeper stuff like Takitty can….IshiHashi moments? XD

Maki Goto (Yeah maybe it is a little typical, but Gocchin today sounds totally different from her then and adding that to these vocalists would so work too…then again Nacchi / Gocchin arguing isn’t worth the rebuttle…I’d like it though!

Kei Yasuda (Kei-chan does good with holding notes so she’d be great for solo lines here more than Maki or Natsumi TBH…She’d be the force to deal with ^_^

Clearly I’d also seem to add Asuka, Risa, Sayaka, Sakura, and Kanon since they’re just good….see I know I lean towards deeper vocals more than the cute and sparkly vocals….Is that so bad though?

Other Things to Mention:

The group does have graduations but only a couple have never seen that day. Mari and Miki both didn’t have gradiations because they ended up leaving due to scandals of BF-ageness.

There are sub-groups of course (so many of them) but a few hold the name or half (and they will also get profiles don’t worry) but they are Morning Musume Sakuragumi and Otomegumi, Morning Musume Tanjou 10nen Kinentai, Muten Musume, and Dream Morning Musume (though the latter isn’t a part of H!P persay…all of the members were ex-Momosu members.

They also are known for actually having celebrities today that went through the auditions but didn’t get accepted but became popular elsewhere like Koda Kumi (who was THAT close to getting into Morning Musume with Maki Goto), Kaori Mochida from ELT, and KEIKO from Kalafina….then there’s others like Yuu Kikkawa that auditioned didn’t get it…went to the Egg program and then became a soloist…whoohoo!

Also some members were from the Eggs that were promoted into Morning Musume like Linlin, Haruka Kudou, and Mizuki Fukumura.

Also known for doin plays and dramas, they’re a busy bunch of ladies hahah…

For awards, there’s a lot and they recently broke another with having all their singles in the top 10 on ORICON…what does that say to you? XD

Overall: Like I said without Momosu, would there even be H!P and without the popularity of LOVE Machine, where would the music world be without them, they’re classics and still taking charge and selling (not as much as AKB48 (or how many members are left today XD) but still is relevent to make people notice them. There is definitely nothing I would change with the group and every member brought something amazing to the table…even the vocally unstable girls stood out in good ways.

I think Current Momosu does need that powerhouse sound that Takitty and Gaki have been maintaining for such a long time…so I’m sure Tsunku is looking for that but he’s got a lot of young’ns to work with…we’ll see if anyone of em (maybe Masaki and Kanon) can be those voices!